Is Oprah Cheating On Her Microsoft Love? 215
theodp writes "In what would be akin to General Petraeus pledging fidelity to his wife from the Gmail account he shared with his lover, Oprah has professed her endless love for the Microsoft Surface from an iPad. Microsoft's Surface tablet is one of Oprah's 'Favorite Things' of 2012, but an eagle-eyed observer at ZAPP noticed that a tweet from Oprah last night ('Gotta say love that SURFACE! Have bought 12 already for Christmas gifts.') apparently originated from Twitter for iPad. Betcha Steve Ballmer has a shiny new Surface for the Oprah staffer or intern who fesses up to Tweeting on her boss's behalf!"
EPIC (Score:2, Insightful)
Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Who gives a fuck??
Intresting (Score:5, Insightful)
Who gives a fuck? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why is this even here? Is this Gawker? People Magazine? I don't give a flying fuck what Oprah is doing and this doesn't even remotely have anything to do with technology or nerds. You might as well be posting articles about what kind of phone Justin Bieber was spotted using last night. Nobody gives a fuck.
http://gawker.com/178280/the-mystery-of-non+blogger-theodp
Re:Who gives a fuck? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's imporant news to the multitude of paid MS shills operating on Slashdot.
Since they make up a significant portion of first-posters, Slashdot should cater to their needs too.
Re:Irony or Dispair (Score:5, Insightful)
I notice the Nexus 7 is optimistic about selling 5 Million tablets by new year [For reference Apple sold 14million tablets last quarter]
As with the smartphone market where up until the Galaxy S3, no Android phone outsold the iPhone yet Google is mopping up the market share, so will the tablet market go. No time soon will any single Android tablet outsell the mighty iPad but believe that very soon Android will ship on more tablets than iOS does and when the tipping point is reached, the iPad will find its rightful place in the inevitable high margin//small share niche Apple seems to love so much on the desktop.
I was reading about Adidas and Puma http://www.neatorama.com/2012/11/19/Family-Feud-Adidas-vs-Puma/#more [neatorama.com] just today, and how part of their success was getting Jesse Owens to wear their shoes.
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That doesn't bother me so much. I hope Owens loves his leather and rubber Adidas/Puma amalgamation since at least he actually wears what he is endorsing. If he thought the shoe would slow him down, no amount of money would put a pair on his feet. Compare that to what Oprah (a highly influential personality) is doing. The woman is basically lying her ass off pretending to be a Surface user when the reality is she wields an iPad. It's sad that the generation of cynics will just think business as usual. The woman is a hypocrite and a fucking liar. Simple as that.
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Who gives a fuck? (Score:5, Insightful)
Has Oprah seriously influenced your life?
It's not my life that I was talking about, it's the legion of over 35 housewives that hang off her every word. When Oprah speaks, her followers listen. With one offhand comment, she can shoot a book up on the bestseller list. All I'm saying is if you bear that kind of social responsibility then at least keep it real. Surely if the woman is going to shill for the Surface, she can at least bother to use the one Microsoft assuredly furnished her for the task. The shit is free. Pick the damn thing up and tweet on it. Hell, get a lackey to do it. Don't be a fucking hypocritical liar heaping praise on a gadget when the very lying words you are writing are being composed on the competitor's product. When people get busted lying like that they need to at least be clued in that somebody noticed. Maybe one day, a modicum of shame or, God forbid, decency might enter the public discourse.
So, does Oprah "influence" me? Hell no. That doesn't mean she should be given carte blanche to tell bold faced lies to the people here words do effect.
Re:Who gives a fuck? (Score:2, Insightful)
MS earned $69+ billion last year. Hardly sounds like a company that's flopping, or selling flops.
I didn't say MS was flopping so you can sit on that strawman and spin. Had you the capability of actually comprehending what you read, you'd see that I mentioned 2 products that are definite flops, namely the Zune and Windows Phone, then I threw in a couple of other products that aren't off to a great start possibly fortelling a future flop, namely Windows 8 and the Surface. That 69 billion dollar figure doesn't mean shit anyway, since what they actually made was 27 billion. That money was made primarily in two places, Office and Windows licensing with some rounding errors accounting for the XBox and a few other things.
A ton of shit MS comes out with flops hard and just throwing up an income figure like some fucking fanboy moron isn't going to change that.
Re:Who gives a fuck? (Score:4, Insightful)
If this is indeed true, then in my opinion it only reflects the desperate situation Microsoft is in..
Desperate ain't even the word for it. Fucking scared shitless is more like it. Here, let me paint this iPad shaped picture for you. The WinRT Surface is the epitome of pointless me-too shite. For all the supposed "innovation" in the UI, all one has to do is take two steps back and really look at the situation for what it is. The Surface and the entire Windows on ARM initiative is a desperate attempt to copy the iPad and in true cargo cult fashion, MS thinks if they lock the app store down just so, and get just this many content partners then they can through sheer will somehow ape the iPad formula and *hand wave* beat Apple at their own game. Ha! What they're forgetting is the iPad is not just another competitive device from any old company. The iPad, when you look at it from the typical consumer perspective, is fucking fantastic. It has hundreds of thousands of apps, it's relatively cheap, it has a jaw dropping high-res screen (you know, that thing you'll be looking at when you use it), it has an interface that, again assuming the consumer role, is sublime in its simplicity.
Basically, the iPad is ridiculously better than the Surface in practically every way that matters to the market. The entry level price is cheaper, it has tons more apps, it has an interface that is not nearly as confusing, and on and on. Basically, the iPad is what people expect a tablet to be. Android through sheer virtue of looking and acting so much like iOS is acceptable to many people as well. Trying to pawn off WinRT as a legitimate alternative to the general consumer is laughable in its current state. And the back and forth desktop/metro mode is pure comedy. The thing is a joke. And an expensive one at that. The days of divine providence where if you were using a consumer device that could be confused with a computer, Windows as OS was a given, are quite simply over. MS know Windows and by extension Office are the keys to the kingdom and tablet by tablet and smartphone by smartphone, that providence is being revoked. Yeah, they scared.
Re:Who gives a fuck? (Score:4, Insightful)
If anyone praises Linux, it's because of liberty and choice. If anyone praises Windows, it's because they're a paid Microsoft shill. Is that right?
If someone praises a product that has been hammered by review after review it's likely a paid marketing attempt.
If someone praises a product within seconds of a new story being posted they are either the world's fastest typist or they are copy and pasting something.
The Microsoft astroturfers are all over slashdot and we all know it, but as you point out not everything pro Microsoft is a paid astroturfer.
Re:EPIC (Score:5, Insightful)
The epic part would be where it appears Oprah's open and honest endorsement of a product appears to simply be a shill for something she couldn't even be bothered to use while shilling for it.
Oprah seems to have this cult following (less now that she isn't on regular TV) that trusts her words in ways that would make Paul Harvey appear like a used car salesman and they seem to do whatever she tells them. That is why Oprah's endorsement in and of itself is newsworthy- let alone why this seeming deceit is.